THE ECONOMIST: AUTONOMOUS VEHICLES WILL CHANGE THE WORLDTHE FUTURE WILL BE ABOUT SELLING RIDES, NOT CARSAV success depends on whether policymakers can learn the lessons of the horseless carriage and apply them to the driverless car (PRNewsfoto/The Economist)

AV success depends on whether policymakers can learn the lessons of the horseless carriage and apply them to the driverless car

Autonomous vehicles are expected to develop and spread quickly in the coming years. Some are already on the road. This report considers the implications of fully self-driving cars for personal mobility, car ownership and the future of transport, on the assumption that the remaining technological hurdles will be overcome. It also looks more broadly at the wider economic, social and cultural effects of AVs.

THE ECONOMIST: AUTONOMOUS VEHICLES WILL CHANGE THE WORLD THE FUTURE WILL BE ABOUT SELLING RIDES, NOT CARS AV success depends on whether policymakers can learn the lessons of the horseless carriage and apply them to the driverless car

The author of “Reinventing wheels,” a special report published in today’s edition of The Economist, is Tom Standage, the newspaper’s deputy editor and head of digital strategy. He notes that AVs are not yet ready to operate entirely without human supervision, but have made rapid progress in recent years. Tech giants (notably Google’s sister company Waymo), startups, carmakers and academic researchers are all working on AVs or developing related technology, including laser scanning, computer vision and machine learning. Waymo expects to launch a driverless “robotaxi” service this year, serving a limited part of the city of Phoenix, Arizona; GM, America’s biggest carmaker, hopes to follow suit next year.

Because AVs sit at the intersection of the technology and automotive industries, a furious battle is under way to dominate this emerging industry. The result has been a flurry of deals and alliances between carmakers, software and hardware companies and ride-hailing firms. The report predicts that at least initially, and possibly even in the long term, a large proportion of self-driving cars will be taxis of some sort. The future will be about selling rides, not cars.

“Reinventing wheels” examines four main themes:

Technology: AV technology is making rapid progress but still needs further work for a wide rollout. A fully autonomous car needs to master three tasks: perceiving its environment, predicting the actions of those around it and responding accordingly. The first two of these tasks pose the greatest technical challenges.

Impact on industry: carmakers, tech companies and ride-hailing firms are all competing and often co-operating in this new field. AVs could undermine the case for car ownership, but there is a big opportunity for carmakers to reinvent themselves as mobility providers, selling miles rather than metal boxes.

Urban planning: AVs present an opportunity to rethink cities. They could reduce traffic and reduce transport costs. But whether they increase urban density or encourage sprawl will depend on planners’ and policymakers’ choices.

Society: AVs could greatly reduce crashes, emissions and congestion, but could also have unintended consequences. By recording riders’ every move, they raise privacy concerns. And uneven provision could cause new forms of segregation.

A century ago the advent of the car brought more personal autonomy, freedom of choice and mobility, but at the cost of pollution, congestion and road deaths. Autonomous vehicles will prove similarly revolutionary. AVs offer policymakers an extraordinarily flexible tool with which to shape urban and transport environments—but that also means that they offer authoritarian governments a powerful means of social control. Whether they are a success will depend on whether policymakers can learn the lessons of the horseless carriage and apply them to the driverless car.